


demo reel

by khattikeri



Series: director's cut [3]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Gen, Introspection, Memory Alteration, New Dangan Ronpa V3 Spoilers, Post-Canon, aka shirogane takes out her bitterness on others and amami takes out his bitterness on himself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:34:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26355049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/khattikeri/pseuds/khattikeri
Summary: He's dead, he thinks.Amami Rantaro doesn't really know what time or place he's at, but he's fairly certain he's dead.
Relationships: Amami Rantaro & Shirogane Tsumugi
Series: director's cut [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1862407
Comments: 6
Kudos: 25





	demo reel

**Author's Note:**

> This is a companion piece/sequel to both [between pause and play](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25663144) and [when the show's over](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25684900), but can be read as a standalone. Please do give the first two fics a go if you're curious though! I'm proud of them both.
> 
> This one is a lot less structured or pretty, I think. Then again, Amami has no sense of structure, and Shirogane's true self is everything less than pretty, so I think it's okay (/joke).
> 
> Rated T for general Danganronpa-typical morbidity, in-game!Shirogane's general grossness re inc/st, and contemplation of past canonical graphic violence.

He's dead, he thinks. 

Amami Rantaro doesn't really know what time or place he's at, but he's fairly certain he's dead. 

He remembers that strange feeling he’d had over the past few months that someone was stalking him-- not just one person, but several across a group. They were professionals, that much he had been able to understand. But there was little Amami thought of possibly doing about it. 

If he couldn’t protect himself, what was the point?

(self-reliance never lets you down, right?

i can't be a burden to the people i love.)

It wasn't until it was too late, when someone had pushed a rag over his mouth and yanked him into a black car, kicking and muffled screaming and torn pullover sweaters and school bags, that he understood how screwed he really was.

He woke up into a killing game. The film that covered the in-betweens, the prologue pre-whatever memory loss and rewriting he’d experienced, was lost forever to time.

(he could only have hope 

that whoever, if anyone, made it to the end,

they would put the puzzle pieces together

and see the tragic victims' plight for what it truly was,

hung one-by-one with TV antennae and illegal executive decisions.)

Amami shakes his head and brings his mind back to what's really in front of him, the clearest indicator that he must be dead: _her,_ cloaked in blue and white.

He'd seen Shirogane's reflection in the camera lens right before she swung that shot-put ball. He hadn't even been able to turn around; it was that late. It was like getting kidnapped all over again, only this time he left behind a corpse instead of his school bag.

(fool me once, shame on you,

fool me twice, shame on me for eternity.)

Shirogane hummed nonchalantly, kicking up her legs and watching something-- anime? gross-- on her phone. They're both dead; he's positive of that much. 

Amami peeks over the couch to see exactly what she's doing.

He looks at the cartoonish caricatures, generic faceless boy and cute moe girl with an upskirt shot blatant all over the screen, kettle-like squeals of "onii-chan!" echoing from Shirogane's phone speakers, and scrunches up his nose.

She's disgusting. Revolting, even. She hasn't changed a single bit. 

Shirogane is nothing if not someone who notices details. She pauses the anime episode and stretches, letting out an overdone moan-- surely to piss him off, ever spiteful-- then turns around all coy, puts her chin in her hands, and bares a sickle-like grin at him.

"You hate this, don't you?"

Her voice is a purr; Amami flinches involuntarily. He's only halfway-sure of the innuendo behind what Shirogane means and frankly doesn't want to even think of the whole truth of it, much less actually find it out. 

He does hates this. That much is true, no matter what. 

(you hate that you had been kidnapped

and forced to die on camera when all you wanted

was to save someone, anyone, from a terrible fate.

you hate that everyone's gaze was on you, 

cooing over the mysterious prettyboy, 

over your body and face; your hair and skin; your piercings and eyelashes; 

cherrypicking you apart til all they had were your bones,

bloodied and bludgeoned to the floor,

exploiting and desecrating and investigating your corpse.

you hate that even when you're dead,

you squirm at the thought of someone seeing through you.

you hate that your frantic life and death meant nothing to them,

that the emotion and pain of amami rantaro was for naught.

you hate being stuck with her, 

who lended herself to that fate of yours.

but most of all, you hate yourself, don’t you?)

Revealing his insecurities to someone as predatory as Shirogane goes doubly towards the list of things Amami knows will absolutely do him no good; he purses his lips, allows his throat to bob with a disapproving noise, and fiddles with the hair ties around his wrist, a last-ditch method to calm himself down. 

(conceal and smile for thine brethren,

lest they realize how pathetic and useless you really are.)

"It does annoy me a little, but I wouldn't call it hate," Amami amends, quirking his mouth good-naturedly. Shirogane bristles, clutching her head; Amami beams with slightly more shine to his skin and miraculously, Shirogane settles down further onto the couch.

Whittle the truth into something prettier with a liar's gentle knife. Make it something everyone will nod sympathetically at. Make it nice. Make it palatable. Swallow it down with the people you told it to and do not dare reveal what monstrosity you contained within your heart before you carved it to bits.

(all the walls in the world couldn't build a fortress thicker 

than the ones amami rantaro maintained

to keep emotional attachments out.)

It’s then that he notices that Shirogane is thinking about something. Her shoulders shake a bit, trembling in a way that isn’t nearly as frigid or calm as she pretended she was. Amami hesitates, then reaches out. That thinning, weary sense of concern hasn’t left him quite yet. 

Whether Shirogane was sad or mad or both, they were all victims, in a way. 

“Are you alri--”

"God, you're so _annoying--!"_ Shirogane grits her teeth and slaps his hand away, suddenly yanking at his shirt collar from the top of the couch where she'd just clambered to; the sudden action makes him jerk, and unsurprisingly, the two topple over to the floor, Shirogane caging him in with her arms and hair.

Amami's throat is dry as Shirogane shakes above him, mouth twisted into a garish snarl.

('you hate this, don't you?')

He’d never know if the question was really directed at himself or not. Not anymore.

"What is it with you, piddling around all self-deprecative like you have anything worth sacrificing? Like you have the right to hide just to save people?" Shirogane growls, furious. “Like you’re some pretty prince being nice to the witch who killed you?!”

It's so unfeminine. So uncontrolled. In this moment Shirogane is uncaring of how tangled her hair is, of how wrinkled her clothes are, of how askew her glasses have turned. It's a little funny; Amami had expected someone so camera-conscious to fret over it instead of focusing her energy and loathing entirely on him.

(discomfort spreads quicker within the pit of his chest 

than the blood once did across his head.) 

If only he was better than this. Maybe if he wasn’t so useless, he’d be able to actually understand and help the people he wanted to help.

Amami chuckles awkwardly, then begins to pry Shirogane’s manicured nails off of his shirt and gently move her arm away before she can snap and choke him for real. He doesn't lose his cool.

If he loses his cool, he’s as good as nothing.

"What," Shirogane furrows her brows at him. "You think I’ll go batshit stupid all over again for shits and giggles? You think I wanted this the way that bitch on screen did?!" she points angrily at the TV screen that he only now realizes is in the room, playing the killing game's final trial over and over, a never-ending hell.

(what can a boy like him possibly say to galatea,

a girl whose body is molded with ivory-colored clay

and whose mind is butchered beyond belief,

to look and act in a manner convenient for the thoughtless, cruel pygmalion’s

neverending television tragedy?)

To some extent, she must have wanted it, he thinks. She can't be a victim like the rest of them. Like him. How could he ever think of her as a victim? He’s never thought of her as a victim.

R i g h t ?

His brain feels fuzzy. Who is she, again? Who is _he?_ The one from the game, or the one from before... when they had all met in… in the gym?

Who are they, even?

“You’ll never know,” she whispers, answering his question for him. “And neither will I. If they could erase our memories when we got in, they’ll do it when the others finally get out too.”

Doomed to tragedy. How funny.

Amami isn’t laughing.

“Are you real?” he asks, voice scratchy.

Shirogane doesn’t laugh, but looks like she wants to. And then she looks like she wants to slap him. And then she sighs. “I’m not talking to you about something I spent hours yelling over with Saihara-kun,” she clicks her tongue, irritation plain on her face. “Real, fiction, truth, lies. I don’t _care._ Danganronpa is over.”

Is it, though? There’s so much that confuses him. Amami doesn’t recall being in a previous game, regardless of what the brainwashed actress on screen is saying. Memory wiping aside, Shirogane herself continued to be an enigma.

“It’s over,” Shirogane snaps. “Just forget it. You and I can wash our hands of each other. Don’t worry about it.”

The back of Amami’s head aches, a dull phantom pain. “Easier said than done,” he twists his mouth, too uncomfortable now to feign a smile.

Shirogane sighs again at his silence, then gets up and plants herself right back on the couch like she hadn’t just tried to kill him again. 

“Shirogane-san?” Amami calls out politely.

“I hate you,” she replies dully. “Go away.”

He feels so useless, unable to reach out to a comrade hardly a few feet away.

 _The feeling’s mutual,_ Amami clenches his fist by his side. _I hate me too._

Now that he thought about it, he remembers why he wasn’t the biggest fan of Shirogane either. He unclenches his fist at the useless thought, sweat slipping away any chance he has at escaping his fate. 

_Not that we’ll remember when they erase our memories and let us have at it again._

They’re fruitless to change, doomed to repeating mistakes over and over, looping like a hand-cranked film strip. And when the film finishes, the producers would pluck them out, rewind the tape, and set them right back where they started.

Maybe the others would be able to end it. Maybe they’d snip that little strip of film, completely cut off any hopes of Danganronpa continuing, and get them all out of the hell they were trapped in. It’d be nice if it could be true. 

But until then… Well.

Amami supposes there’s a reason he and Shirogane specifically ended up stubborn and dead, as opposed to those left after them.

(it’s not a nice reunion in the least, 

whether this whole thing is real 

~~or just the next season’s demo reel.)~~

-

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Kudos and comments are appreciated.
> 
> For more content, check out my tumblr/twitter @khattikeri.


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